A first mystery by a short story writer, this has a definite local -- Atlanta, Georgia, -- appeal and the deep-dug background of social work. Against the killing of the Bureau's head, a well-daided sadist, and other intimations of mortality, is Jane Wallace, daily encountering the plaints and pleas of the applicants for charity (?) and help and the close-knit lives of her fellow-workers. A cloistered invalid is her Sherlock but it is the story here, rather than the case, which makes this distinctive.